How to fill out Alabama MVT 5-9

The way an Alabama title application happens when the vehicle cannot be driven to the counter. Every application carries a designated agent's certificate that the vehicle has been physically inspected, so a car that will not start, a boat trailer on a farm or a vehicle sitting three counties away creates a real problem. This form solves it in four parts: the owner appoints the licensing official as attorney-in-fact, and the licensing official appoints a government official nearer the vehicle as a deputy to go and look at it.

Written against MVT 5-9 (6/23), issued under Code of Ala. 1975, Section 32-8-34; Chapter 8 of Title 32. Start this one at the county office rather than at home. The licensing official has to agree to be appointed, and has to have somebody they are willing to deputise near where the vehicle actually is - a sheriff's deputy, a police officer, another county's licensing staff. Turning up with Parts I and II already filled in and no arrangement behind them saves nobody any time.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank MVT 5-9 from the revenue.alabama.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today.

Every line, in the order you meet it

1. 1
   You fill this in

   Part I - the identification number

   The vehicle identification number, serial number or hull identification number, on the first rule.

   Watch out: This is the number the deputy will be checking against the vehicle. Copy it from the plate on the car, not from the paperwork, because the whole exercise exists to prove the two agree.

2. 2
   You fill this in

   Part I - year, make, model, colour, cylinders

   Five short fields across the row underneath.

   Watch out: Cylinders is asked for on Alabama title documents and forgotten on most of them. It is printed on the face of the certificate if you have one.

3. 3
   You fill this in

   Part I - owner names

   Owner 1 and Owner 2, exactly as the certificate names them.

   Watch out: If the certificate joins two names with and, both owners are in this transaction and both will have to sign what follows.

4. 4
   You fill this in

   Part I - resident physical address and mailing address

   Two rows. The physical address has to be a real Alabama location.

   Watch out: A post office box belongs in the mailing row and only where no lienholder is listed - the Department says so about the title application, and this form feeds it.

5. 5
   You fill this in

   Part I - lienholder, lien date and address

   The recorded lienholder, if there is one, with the date of the lien.

   Watch out: Leave it empty if there is genuinely no lien. Naming a lender who was paid off years ago drags a release into a transaction that did not need one.

6. 6
   You fill this in

   Part II - appoint the licensing official

   Write the licensing official's name in the first gap and the county in the second, then sign and date.

   Watch out: Ring the office first and ask whose name goes in. Titles differ by county - a judge of probate here, a licence commissioner there - and the form wants the person, not the office.

7. 7
   Somebody else fills this in

   Part III

   The licensing official appoints the government official named in Part IV as a deputy, prints their name, signs and dates.

   Watch out: This is the part that gives the inspection its legal weight. An inspection done by somebody who was never deputised is not an inspection under Chapter 8.

8. 8
   Somebody else fills this in

   Part IV

   The deputised official certifies the physical inspection, and gives their printed name, their agency name, their signature and the date.

   Watch out: The agency name matters as much as the signature. It is what tells the Department that a government official, and not a helpful neighbour, stood next to the vehicle.

What gets this one rejected

• •An owner completing Part III or Part IV. Each part carries its own to be completed by line, and two of the four belong to public officials.
• •A deputy who is not a government official. Part IV asks for the government official's agency name as well as their name, which is the point of the exercise.
• •A blank county in Part II. The appointment is of a named licensing official of a named county, and without the county it appoints nobody.
• •Using it to get out of an inspection. It moves the inspection; it does not remove it. Somebody still has to stand next to the vehicle and check the number.
• •Lienholder details left off where a lien exists. The block asks for the name, the lien date and the address, and the Department reads them against its own record.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

• •Why the inspection exists at all. Section 32-8-35(d) requires every title application to be accompanied by the agent's certificate that the vehicle has been physically inspected by the agent and that the vehicle identification number and descriptive data shown on the application are correct. That is the sentence this whole form exists to satisfy.
• •It is also the untitled-vehicle inspection. On a vehicle too old to be titled, the Department's rule is that the licensing official or their appointed deputy is required to inspect the vehicle prior to issuing a registration each time there is a change in ownership, along with the ownership documentation.
• •Vessels and manufactured homes travel on the same sheet. Alabama began titling vessels in January 2024 and reused this form for them, which is why the first field will take a hull identification number.

Every line here was read off MVT 5-9 (6/23) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division pages. This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.

Back to all Alabama seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Alabama involves.